Telecommunications company Swisscom AG said Wednesday that second-quarter net profit more than doubled to 596 million Swiss francs (US$473 million; ¤382.47 million) from the same period last year, AP reported. Switzerland's largest telephone company attributed the gain in part to higher financial income. Last year's figure also was reduced by a charge for the sale of the company's stake in Debitel. Swisscom said the net profit attributable to shareholders for the three months ending June 30 compared with 269 million francs in the second quarter last year. The net financial result was 64 million francs (US$51 million; ¤41 million), compared with a loss of 21 million francs in the quarter last year. The company said this was primarily due to an improved net interest, and a gain from the early repayment of vendor loan notes granted to the purchasers of Debitel. Sales were 2.47 billion francs (US$1.96 billion; ¤1.58 billion), down 1.7 percent from 2.51 billion francs from the year-earlier period, a company statement said. --mor 1300 Local Time 1000 GMT
